Dream Whispers

A few weeks ago, I had a dream. I was sitting outside people watching at a park. It was warm and sunny and I felt, well good. Somebody next to me whispered in my ear, “Your camera is not dead. I patiently replied without looking at the unidentified person, “Yeah, it is. I can’t focus it. The auto focus is dead.” The person whispered back, “That is a lens issue. You need a new lens, but your camera is fine.” I woke up, for a few minutes I thought “YAY, Nikki can be fixed!” I then realized, “ …..Oh, stupid dream.” and proceeded with my day. At this point everybody who has bothered to read their digital SLR instructions, is thinking, “Duh, moron, listen to the camera whisperer…she is right.” It turned out, it took me a minute to think, wait a minute, it IS the lens. Long story short, Nikki the Nikon is alive and well after a quick, (as in let’s break speed records) trip down to my favorite Camera Department.

Who was the camera whisperer?

Several decades ago, my then fiancé’s brother was getting married. There was a problem with a detail in the wedding plans and Joe, my fiancee needed to talk to him about it. Joe went to be early leaving instructions with his father that when Pete his brother came home, he should wake Joe up so they can talk about the problem. Pete worked late shifts and would not be home until quite late. The next morning I went to Joe’s and he said Pete had not waken him, that his father probably forgot to tell him to do so. Later that night, Peter, Joe and I were hanging out, when Peter told him this story: It seems Peter indeed went downstairs to wake up Joe after Joe. The conversation went like this:

“Hey Joe, Pop told me to wake you. You say there is a problem with the wedding plans.”

Groggily, Joe seemingly awake said, “Yes, the current and the voltage don’t match.”

Confused and amused Pete tried again, Joe, Joe, what the hell are you talking about. Wake up.”

“Yeah, Pete, I’m awake, what?”

“What’s the problem with the wedding plans?”

“Pete,” replied Joe, “The current and the voltage don’t match”

“Yeah,” said Pete, resigned that Joe is obviously to far gone in dreamland, “I’ll talk to you tomorrow”

Joe was fast asleep before Pete could finish the sentence.

It was a good thing that Pete told him what he had said in his sleep that night when it seemed like Joe was awake. You see, Pete gave him the answer to a problem Joe, an engineer, was having at work.

The brain was my camera whisperer, and Joe’s work whisperer. Somewhere in the parts that Scientists say we likely do not use consciously we have answers and we have to go to sleep to get the answers. This is a simple explanation for something so small, our brains but so unbelievably amazing and maybe magical, supernatural and maybe theological.

"Past and Present" Digital Collage

Our brains look out for us. We learn from either older wiser people who have smarter gray matter than us or we learn from trail and error, but when we do, we can survive because of our brains. Instincts start in the brain, taste, smell, sounds are processed in the brain. We do not step in shit because we learn if it smells like shit and it looks like shit, then maybe just maybe it IS shit, and we don’t smash our Keds in them. We tend to be smart that was most of the time.